Inside Man | ONC2023

8. Scam | 8K Milestone

(Author's Note: this chapter is dedicated to LadySapphire2018 and her very sweet, magical fantasy for the ONC2023, Samhain & Beltane)

Bogdan arrived at the old warehouse to find the main door had been secured by the police. For a moment he considered simply breaking the seal, after all, as the building owner, surely he had right of entry, but then he saw a broken window a little further along. That would be better.

Gingerly, he climbed through the gap, careful not to catch his clothes on the broken plasglas. He proceeded to search the building, looking for evidence. But the bodies had been removed and he could see no sign of the battle which had taken place, except for the odd stunner burn on a wall. The floors were surprisingly free of dust, which indicated the police had already collected any forensic evidence which might have been there.

He tried to picture where Wyte and his men had placed themselves but there were too many spots where someone could lie in wait. Personally, he thought he would have stood just inside the entrance and shot the man before he had a chance to get his bearings. His lip curled. He couldn't understand how the others had missed, how they had been so incompetent.

Apart from the broken window he had climbed through, he could see a few other areas of damage to the building, some smashed interior partitions, some grafitti, probably caused by vagrants or perhaps kids looking for thrills. He spent most of the afternoon making sure the building was as secure as possible. Once the police had finished here, he'd arrange for a cleaning company to come in and tidy the place up. It was a good-sized space and he could already think of several useful purposes for it.

Bogdan finished blocking up the window he'd entered by, and walked back to his hovercar. Now that task was done, his mind kept returning to his conversation with Uncle Frank. Who the fuck was Joyce? "The guy I've got investigating..." his uncle had said. Joyce sounded like a woman's name but he was pretty sure Frank had said "he".

He'd thought he knew everyone who worked closely with his uncle, in fact, he had detailed dossiers on most of them, but he had never heard of Joyce. Which was rather worrying. Why had his uncle thought it necessary to bring in an outsider? What—or who—did he suspect? Could it be possible he was on the right trajectory?
Until that conversation, he'd been convinced Finn was the man his uncle had set to track down the missing money. Which was why he'd sent Wyte and his men to kill him.

Fuck!

Bogdan's hand clenched on the steering stick, sending the hovercar swerving unexpectedly to the right. Hastily he corrected course, his forehead creased in a savage frown. He wondered how close Frank and his investigator Joyce had got. There had been no personal confrontations, however, so he thought he still had a little time to fix things.

He, of course, had known who the swindler was for several months; in actual fact, pretty much as soon as she had begun to operate. Her little scheme of skimming off the credits between the time they were gained and the time they were recorded, had been quite clever, but not clever enough. As soon as he discovered the fraud, he spent some time investigating the perpetrator. A single woman, in her forties, living alone in a cheap apartment block.

He still remembered the look of fear on the woman's face when he confronted her that first night. He didn't want to risk a discussion at work, where anyone might interrupt or overhear, so he'd followed her home to her apartment. Which as it turned out, had been a very effective strategy.

The moment she waved her wristcom across the security panel, he crowded up behind her, pushing her roughly inside her apartment so that she tripped and fell, and shutting the door behind them both.

For a moment she lay there, speechless with shock. Then she whimpered, "Who are you? What do you want? Please, don't hurt me!"

"I've been watching you, Jone Mink." Bogdan grabbed her arm, hauled her up and spun her round to face him.

He saw her shock turn to astonishment as she recognised his face.

"Mr Veitch?"

"Indeed. I've been watching you," he repeated. "You've got a nice little scam going, haven't you, Jone? Stealing from your employer. What do you think Mr Yelt will say when I tell him of your behaviour? I'm sure you've heard the stories of how he deals with anyone who crosses him. I believe they haven't found the body yet, of the last person."

He hadn't thought it was possible for her face to get any paler, but it did. For a moment he thought she was going to faint.

"Please, sir! Don't tell him! My mother is sick, that's why I need the money. It's not for myself. I'll pay it back, I promise. Just give me time."

"And how exactly are you going to pay it back?" He glanced around the cheaply furnished room with dismissive eyes. "You don't look like you've got anything worth selling."

"I've got an inheritance! From my aunt. It's just taking longer than I thought to come through, and Mother needs the medicine now. She can't wait."

She looked up, desperate pleading in her eyes. "The money is just a loan. I'm going to pay it back when I get my inheritance, I swear."

Bogdan raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Please, Mr Veitch, please, don't tell Mr Yelt! I promise, I won't take any more." Jone's shoulders drooped. "I'm sure Mother can manage for a few more weeks. I'll stop immediately."

Until that precise moment, Bogdan had been uncertain as to his next step. Various plans had jostled for position in his head, but now he knew exactly what he was going to do.

"But I don't want you to stop," he said, with a smile.

"What?"

"I don't want you to stop. I want you to keep doing what you're doing, but this time with a slight adjustment."

"I don't understand."

The piteous note in her voice irritated Bogdan and he took a firmer grip on her arm, giving it a little shake.

"It's quite simple, from now on you'll pay half of everything you take to me. Think of it as my fee, for letting you continue to support your mother."

Jone seemed to be struggling to grasp the concept. "But what about Mr Yelt?"

"It will be our secret, just between the two of us. If you ever think of telling anyone else... don't. Remember, I know where you live."

~~~~~

Word count 8275 at the end of this chapter according to Wattpad, and not counting all my author's notes.